


what a wave you have made

by waveydnp



Series: waveydaysFICS [7]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, Lingerie, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 17:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12347073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: phil learns something new about dan





	what a wave you have made

**Author's Note:**

> waveydaysFICS week #6 topic: lingerie
> 
> title is from colourway by novo amor
> 
> check out ashley's lingerie fic @iihappydaysii

Dan is lying beneath him on the sofa, face flushed, lips bitten red. Phil leans down and kisses those lips, feels the heave of Dan’s chest against his. These nights they spend together in Phil’s new flat always have them feeling drunk, heady with the feeling of freedom and adulthood they’d pined for, what they’d promised each other all those lonely nights the distance had forced them to spend apart. Dan’s meant to be in his tiny dorm room in the uni halls, but most nights they both find this feeling too good to resist.

Phil reaches down, slides his hand under Dan’s jeans and stops abruptly, feeling lace where he’d expected cotton.

“Oh, fuck,” Dan says. “I forgot. Shit. Fuck.”

Phil pulls his head back and looks into Dan’s eyes. They’re dark and wide and full of fear. Phil hates it. He doesn’t really know what to make of the foreign material against the tips of his fingers or the nervous twinge in his gut, he just knows he can’t have Dan looking like that, not at him, not at Phil, who’s already fallen so deep he’d find Dan sexy dressed head to toe as a fucking clown.

“It’s ok,” he whispers, but Dan sits up, pushes Phil away gently. “Dan--”

“I have to go.”

Dan gets a taxi back to the dorms and doesn’t talk to Phil again for two days. They don’t talk about it, and Phil is too awkward to bring it up.

He thinks about it though. He thinks about it a lot--sometimes at night, when he’s all alone and there’s nothing to distract him from the image of black satin stretched tight over Dan’s sharp hipbones. He wonders what it means that it turns him on with such force it’s almost violent.

It had taken him long enough to come to terms with his queerness. The painful fact is he still struggles constantly to reconcile the rules he’d been brought up with and the way the life he’s chosen breaks those rules every day. He doesn’t doubt for a moment that Dan is the person he’s meant to be with, but he can’t pretend he’s not scared about what it means that his boyfriend had been wearing women’s pants.

As is too often the case when one is repressed and terrified, it takes a night of drinking for Phil to find his courage.

“Are we ever going to talk about it?” They’re lying on the sofa, Dan leaning back into Phil’s chest.

“Bout what?” Dan’s voice is always deeper when he’s drunk. His head is lolled back against Phil’s collarbone.

“About why you think you can’t talk to me.”

“I don’t think that. I tell you everything.”

“You don’t.”

Dan is quiet then, finally understanding. Remembering. “Oh. You remember that?”

“Of course. I… I think about it a lot.”

Dan laughs. “In a pervy way?”

“I mean, not always but… yeah.”

Dan laughs. “Fuck.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No. I just wish you’d told me sooner. I thought you’d forgotten.”

“I wish you’d told _me_.”

Dan shrugs. “There’s really nothing to tell.”

“Do you do it a lot?” Phil asks.

“Not really.”

“Can I ask you something? And you won’t get mad?”

Dan sounds unsure. “Alright.”

“I just want to understand. I want to know you. I don’t want us to keep things from each other.”

“I don’t either. I’m just, like… I dunno. Feels weird to talk about.”

“Yeah… I get it. It doesn’t have to, though. It’s just me.”

Dan nods. “So what is it, then?”

Phil wraps his arms around Dan’s waist, digging his chin into Dan’s shoulder. “Why do you do it?”

“Dunno, really. I just… like it. It makes me feel…”

“Pretty?”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m not taking the piss!” Phil insists loudly.

“Just forget about it, ok?”

Phil turns his head, ghosts his lips over Dan’s ear and whispers, “But you are. You’re always pretty. Will you let me see next time?”

Dan shrugs again.

Phil’s heart sinks. “Dan,” he says shakily.

Dan leans forward, scootching away from Phil a little. “What?”

“Talk to me.” The booze from earlier churns in Phil’s otherwise empty stomach.

Dan stands up. “I don’t want to, Phil. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Dan, I--”

“I’m going to bed,” Dan says, pulling off his shirt and tossing it into Phil’s lap. “You coming?”

It’s not how Phil wanted the night to end. He knows Dan’s scared and it’s twisting his insides into tight little knots. Dan unbuttons his jeans and pushes them down his thighs. His pants are decidedly masculine, and Phil can’t help but feel like he’s putting on a show. The wrong kind of show--one that proves he’s just a lad like any other. He’s beautiful, but Phil can’t even see that right now.

“Not like this,” he whispers.

Dan yanks his jeans back up. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Phil shrinks back a little. He can count on one hand the number of real arguments they’ve had, and he’s never heard Dan’s voice so harsh, so cold. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“Do you even know what you’re apologizing for, or are you just saying that to shut me up?”

“I obviously upset you.” Phil’s voice breaks a little. His head is spinning. He’s never been good with confrontation, and the fact that this one’s with Dan makes it even worse. “I’m not really sure how, but I’m sorry I did.”

Dan sighs loudly and flops down on the couch beside Phil. He tips his head back and runs his hands over his face. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m drunk.”

“Yeah. I am too.” He reaches out and wraps his fingers around the back of Dan’s hand.

Dan softens visibly at the touch. “Sorry.”

“Tell me what I did.”

“You didn’t do anything. You just...”

Phil waits for him to finish, but he doesn’t. “What?”

“You kind of… just, the way you said ‘pretty’... it reminded me of all those chavvy dickheads in high school who’d call me--”

“Don’t,” Phil says softly. “Please. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” Dan says, squeezing around Phil’s fingers. “I just like, had a flashback.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Dan shakes his head. “I really don’t. I never meant for you to know in the first place. I really just want you to forget it even happened at all, alright?” He stands up again and looks down at Phil. “Come on. I’m tired and I don’t want to sleep alone.”

Phil doesn’t say anything else about it that night. In fact he doesn’t bring it up at all, not for months.

When he does, he waits until a night when they’re sober, waits until _after_ their clothes have come off and they’re coming down together. They’re lying in bed, naked bodies pressed together in the dark, Phil running his fingers through Dan’s ruffled fringe.

He whispers it, as if the more quiet he is, the less likely he is to start another argument. “Do you still do it?”

Dan seems to know exactly what Phil means. He sighs. “You’re onto this again.”

“Please don’t be mad. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“Why do you want to so bad?”

“I told you. I don’t want you to keep things from me.”

Dan sits up abruptly. “For fuck’s sake, Phil. You make it sound like I’m lying to you. I just don’t want to talk about this with you.” He leans down and snatches his t-shirt off the floor.

“With me?”

“At all,” Dan’s voice is firm as he tugs his shirt over his head roughly.

Phil sits up, hugging his knees to his chest. “But especially with me.”

Dan is sat on the edge of the bed with his back to Phil. “Can we not do this? It doesn’t even matter.”

“Obviously it does or you wouldn’t get so mad everytime I bring it up.” He hadn’t meant to upset Dan, but clearly he had, again. This time, though, it feels different. It feels less like Dan is embarrassed and more like he’s angry.

Dan’s elbows dig into his thighs as he drops his head into his hands. “You just… you don’t get it.”

“Then fucking explain it to me!” Phil shouts. “That’s all I’ve been asking you for.”

Dan stiffens. Phil’s never shouted at him before. He regrets it instantly, but he can’t bring himself to apologize just yet. He’s still angry, and it hurts him deep down in a tiny part of himself that wonders if they’re too different to make this thing work after all.

“I can’t.” Dan’s voice is small and sad and just what was needed to chase the heat from Phil’s angry words.

He reaches out and runs his hand down Dan’s back. “If you really don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, and I won’t bring it up again. But I’ll never get it if you don’t talk to me.”

Dan doesn’t turn around. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

Dan just shakes his head.

“Will you try?” Phil asks. “I’m not like those guys from your school. It’s me. I love you, remember?”

Dan nods.

“Come here, please.” Phil tugs gently on Dan’s arm.

“Lemme put on pants first,” Dan mumbles, reaching down and fumbling his hands along the floor until he finds his boxers and slips them on. He lies down next to Phil but doesn’t touch him. They lie beside each other, silent in the darkness. Phil has a million questions but he doesn’t know how to ask any of them anymore. He just wants Dan to know that none of it _really_ matters. Phil may not understand it, but it could never change the way he lights up when Dan walks into the room, the warmth he feels when he pictures their future together.

“You don’t have to be afraid to wear them in front of me, you know,” Phil murmurs. “I think I’d find it really hot.”

Phil’s heart kicks in his chest when Dan doesn’t say anything.

“I would find it hot. I do,” he amends.

“It’s not about you, though.”

“Oh. Well, I just--”

“I’m not trying to be an asshole, Phil,” Dan interjects. “It’s just like… it’s not even about that for me. I’m not trying to be sexy or anything.”

“Ok...” Phil says cautiously, “It’s just that you--”

“It does make me feel… sexy, or whatever.”

“Ok.” Phil’s honestly a little afraid to say anything else at this point.

“But that’s still not what it’s about.”

Phil turns over onto his side. He softens his voice as much as he can. “What _is_ it about?”

Dan shrugs. “I was curious.”

“Ok.”

“Shut up.” Dan chuckles.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t want to upset you again.”

“You won’t. Just don’t say anything stupid.”

“Oi, I wasn’t trying to,” Phil protests.

“I know,” Dan says, turning over on his side and shuffling forward so their knees are touching.

“So you were curious,” Phil prompts.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t mean this to be rude but… why?”

Dan shrugs. “Why not? Do you never get curious about stuff like that?”

“Stuff like… panties?”

Dan cringes. “Ugh, god, Phil, never say that again.”

Phil grins. “Never say what? Panties?” He drags the word out long and slow.

“Fuck you. I hate that word. It sounds so pervy.”

“Since when is that a bad thing?” Phil asks.

“I mean like, the bad kind of pervy.”

Phil chuckles. “What shall I call them, then?”

“Just call them pants. That’s all they are.”

“But they’re not--”

“Phil.” Dan’s voice is suddenly harder. “This is why I didn’t want to talk about this with you.”

Phil flinches internally at the last two words. “What d’you mean? Why?”

Dan looks away. “Because… look, it’s not really even your fault, I know that, but you see things differently than I do. Things are so… binary, for you. They’re not for me.”

Phil doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t really know what he could say, because Dan’s right, obviously. Sometimes it feels like their ages are actually reversed--like Dan is the one who’s been around longer and has more experiences to share. Phil still finds himself choosing that red phone case over the purple one that originally caught his eye, or wanting the shampoo that smells like raspberry but settling for the one that smells like ‘pure sport.’

“I don’t look at pants that are pink and lacy and think I can’t wear them because I have a cock,” Dan says quietly. “I like pink. I wanted to try it out so I did. I liked it so now I wear them sometimes.”

“You do?”

Dans nods.

“But I’ve never seen them. You’re over here all the time.”

“I don’t wear them when I know I’m seeing you.”

Phil frowns. “Don’t do that. I want to see every side of you.”

“It’s not like I wear them all the time. They’re not exactly comfortable, they just look nice. They make my ass look more like an ass.”

Phil groans. “You can’t say something like that and not let me see. You can’t hurt me like this.”

“I didn’t want you to think it changes anything. I didn’t think you’d understand.”

“I never will if you shut me out,” Phil says softly.

“I’ll try not to,” Dan says, rubbing his nose against Phil’s, a clearly conciliatory gesture. “Just don’t make it such a big deal. ‘Cause it’s not a big deal to me. I just sometimes like the clothes that are made for girls better.”

Phil nods, even though it still feels like a big deal to him, and he doesn’t actually know that he can consistently act like it isn’t. He still doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t really know if he ever will. What he does know is that he’s pushed Dan as far as he’s willing to go right now. “Ok.”

“If you say ok one more time…”

Phil grins. “Ok.”

*

“God, I hate summer,” Dan shouts from the lounge. “Why do people like summer? It’s so bloody hot.”

Phil is stood in the kitchen making coffee, listening to Dan whinge all the way on the other side of the flat. He grips the mugs carefully and walks with purpose across the light-coloured wood floor of their new place. He sets them down carefully on the glass coffee table and gives Dan a pointed look. His long legs are bare. His hair is even more curly than normal, fluffy from the humidity of the unusually hot May weather. His headphones are pushed down over his ears.

He flops down beside Dan on the sofa and tugs at the oversized sleeve of his black and white striped jumper. “Why don’t you take this off, then?”

Dan looks up, pulling the headphones down around his neck. “What?”

“Take off your jumper if you’re hot.”

“No. I like it. You need to have more respect for my fashion choices, Lester.”

“I guess it’s better than the potato sack.”

Dan doesn’t even look up from the macbook in his lap. “Careful, or I’ll go get it out.”

Phil grins against the rim of his mug, steam fogging up the lenses of his glasses. “I may have hidden it.”

“You rat.”

Phil shrugs. “You left me no choice. That thing is hideous.”

“Your mum is hideous.”

“Rude.” He elbows Dan’s bicep lightly. He hears the shrill sound of Dan’s laughter coming from the headphones jammed over his ears. “Put that down. Watch something with me.”

“I’m editing. We have to get this up or they’ll riot.”

Phil pushes his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout. “I wanna watch something with you.”

Dan chuckles. “For fuck’s sake, Phil, it’s been almost ten days since we put anything on the gaming channel. Plus there’s still shit and boxes everywhere. We don’t have time to be lazy.”

“We do,” Phil says, running his hand up Dan’s naked thigh. “We have time for one episode of Steven Universe. I can’t very well unpack boxes and drink coffee at the same time, can I?”

Dan rolls his eyes and shuts the lid of the laptop. When he lifts it off his lap to place it on the table, Phil sees that his long jumper is completely covering what must be a very small pair of pants.

He looks at Dan and cocks an eyebrow. “Giant jumper and tiny pants is a weird combination I’ll never understand.”

Dan stands up to find the remote for the telly. “You like it.”

Phil leans back into couch and crosses his arms. He lowers his voice an octave as he does whenever he wants Dan to know he’s flirting. “Do I? That jumper is so big I can’t really tell.”

“If you want a show you have to give me something in return,” Dan teases.

“What?” Phil asks, as if he wouldn’t do anything Dan asked him right now. As if he wouldn’t do anything Dan asked him ever.

“Edit the rest of the video for me.”

Phil nods, agreeing instantly. “Lemme see.”

Dan grins, moving to stand in front of Phil, who scoots forward on the sofa so he’s sitting right on the edge, nudging Dan’s legs open a little and sliding his knees between them.

Dan lifts his arms and rests them on the top of his head so the bottom of the sweater rises up, just high enough to reveal a tight pair of lacy black boyshorts--an ironic description for these particular pants given how ridiculously feminine they look against the milky-white skin of Dan’s thigh. Phil’s allowed to have that thought, because that’s all it is--a thought. In his own head he’s allowed to have those binaries, because he doesn’t let them limit his choices or opinions anymore, and it turns him on to see his boyfriend wearing women’s underwear. He’ll never call them that out loud, because ‘gender is a social construct, Phil,’ but he’s still allowed to think it.

Phil reaches under the thin waistband, drags the back of his finger across Dan’s skin. “New?”

Dan nods.

“They’re nice.” He leans forward, pulling them down a little and placing a kiss on Dan’s hip bone. “Do I get to see the back?”

Dan turns around without a word and lifts up the back of the jumper to give Phil a proper view. The pants ride up a little, not enough to be called a thong but enough to give the bottom half of his cheeks some enticing definition, a more pronounced roundness and the illusion of plumpness that has Phil breathing just a little bit heavier. He leans forward and rests his cheek against the rough material. Dan had been right all those years ago--pants like this make his ass look more like an ass.

“You’re so pretty,” Phil murmurs. He’s allowed to say that now. The scars left behind by the cruelty of adolescent bullies have faded enough over the years for Dan to know that when Phil tells him he’s pretty, it’s only because he means it.

Dan wiggles his bum against the side of Phil’s face. “Alright, come on then you thirsty little bitch, my coffee’s getting cold.”

Phil huffs. “It’s too early in the morning for this kind of babuse.”

Dan finds the tv remote on a box beside the sofa and sits down again. “It’s literally noon, Phil.”

“Still.” He picks up his coffee and takes a big swig. It’s not about sex, he tells himself. He always has to remind himself that for Dan, it’s not about sex. It’s just another facet of his personality, another way for him to express the gorgeous complexity of his identity. Sometimes Phil has to push past the rush of arousal to arrive at the feeling of pride at how far Dan’s come. He really does feel so incredibly lucky that of all the people in the world, he’s the one Dan’s chosen, he’s the one who gets to witness each and every single one of those facets.

He can’t deny it though, tight black lace pants are one damn sexy facet. “Are those self-expression panties or drive Phil mad panties?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, because you said the dreaded p word and are therefore dead to me.”

Phil looks over at Dan, who’s trying to hide his smile behind the rim of his mug. An image flashes through Phil’s mind, Dan laid out underneath him again, just like he had been that first confusing night in Manchester, only this time he’s naked and Phil is slowly pulling those black pants down Dan’s thighs with his teeth. He grins. “I’ll make it up to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi i'm @waveydnp on tumblr :)


End file.
